… A 37-year-old woman was having her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed. Medical Residents were doing the surgery using a laparascope. The attending physician was supervising. The doctors were having difficulty identifying the woman’s important organs because there were dense adhesions from an earlier hysterectomy. They partially identified the left ureter, which is a tube that carries urine from the left kidney to the bladder. Assuming that the ureter was out of the way, they continued to burn and cut the tissue, burning and cutting the left ureter. The woman had multiple surgeries to repair the left ureter, but was left with chronic abdominal pain. Rather than risk a trial, the doctors and the hospital agreed to a binding arbitration hearing before a neutral arbitrator. After hearing all of the evidence and testimony, the neutral arbitrator awarded the woman a very substantial sum of money.
